On Jun 9, 2011, at 9:42 AM, "Tab Atkins Jr." <jackalmage@gmail.com> wrote:
>> You are saying that marker placement is the result of a new value of 'position' that causes it to ignore all other ways of selecting it (in the case of an explicit 'position:marker'), and only be styled by the new pseudo-class only, meanwhile causing it to change from 'display: inline' into 'display: inline-block'. That sounds pretty magical to me already, and we have to still nail down how the magic works. And what happens if I have '::marker { display:block; position:static; }'? I still haven't seen an answer to that one. Does it jump back into an inside position? Does it keep the 'display' value from ::marker, or does it now ignore ::marker and revert to only looking at normal (non-pseudo) selection rules?
>
> Hmm, it looks like there was some major miscommunication here. Also,
> the spec is in a somewhat inconsistent state at the moment, so you
> can't look to it for guidance until I correct it (which I'll do
> today).
I would say lack of clarity in communication, not miscommunication. You seem to have a different mental model than I do, which has not been clear to me (in parts) from the spec or your subsequent emails, and I've been trying to understand the parts that I find confusing, while making suggestions for ways to avoid confusion via alteration to the way it works.
> There are two values for list-style-position: 'inside' and 'outside'.
> Their primary effect is changing where the ::marker is placed in the
> element-tree.
I'm with you so far.
> 'outside' also tweaks the default value
Do you mean computed value?
> of a few
> properties on ::marker,
> including making it "position:marker".
OK. That bit of magic wasn't clear to me before. I had thought "position:marker" was just to move arbitrary elements into marker position.
> "position:marker" is just a new positioning scheme based on how
> markers are typically positioned.
>
> You can also use "position:marker" on arbitrary elements, which does
> the expected thing of just making the element positioned.
>
> My point about avoiding magical behavior is that, given the concept of
> "position:marker" (which I like), ::marker should act almost exactly
> like an extra ::before
I agree ::marker should be similar to an extra ::before in most ways.
> that list-items happen to possess (modulo the
> few places where 'outside' tweaks default property values). This
> seems elegant and minimally invasive, which hopefully means that it
> should be easy to understand too.
OK so at least I understand you better now. However, "new positioning scheme based on how markers are typically positioned" doesn't sound significantly less magical than "outside marker content has a containment block that is the box where markers are typically positioned".